Rocket Science
by J Daisy
Summary: After Cuddy calls them to back PPTH to work on a difficult case, Chase, Cameron, and Foreman are all forced to confront the irrevocable truths of their own lives, the ties that bind, the convoluted webs they have spun... and find their way to one another.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything._

_Author's Notes: _If I were Dr. House, I would have a fleet of Ducklings, Cuddys, and Wilsons to help me out with fics. Alas, House and all his "friends" are fictional, and were thus unavailable. I was, however, lucky enough to be aided by the invaluable leiadiana and jcshipper, who each supplied me with help and encouragement. Big hugs for each of you, you both were so wonderful! Also, this was written for finallytuesday's Get Chase Hugged fest - go check out that community, it has so many talented writers, but needs more!

_Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean._

_-Ryunosuke Satoro_

_"" "" ""_

It begins, ironically, with a bang: The slip of her heel on the heat tiled floor, the unceremonious way her body follows her foolish foot, and finally, the muffled thud Lucy Chandra Dwyer's head makes as it connects with a floor that is hundreds of miles from Earth. Her common sense and her brilliant mind are both useless to her now. Her scream is dead on her tongue. Her body lies inconsequentially in the open, seeping shape of a fallen angel: It has done little but betray her in the past few years.

The cargo bay is somewhat dim, and Dwyer's body casts only a faint shadow. Space is home to a billion stars, but it is impossibly dark and the moon, the moon with her footprints on its lunar basalt skin, is the only thing to look at.

_(It is hanging in the balance. Whatever lucky circumstance that hooked it into the inky sky in the first place is falling into irrelevance. I am it.)_

She comes to: Nothing. A wide, gaping hole where her mind should be.

_"" "" ""_

Chase sees it as it is: He can go, or he can not go.

It's simple, really.

His Australia is All-At-Once time - the indigenous belief in a moment that has happened, is happening, and will happen. Past, present, future. Collide.

He doesn't, he shouldn't, _want _to go back. Chase is logical about this: _There _is old, rotting. _Here_ is fresh. _There _is death.

"Were you about to make a call?" Cameron is interrupting suddenly. Comfortable. Striding into his kitchen.

_Here _is his heart.

"No," Chase answers quickly. Guilty. "Someone called me. Wrong number." He is a good liar. Practice makes perfect.

"Well," Cameron laughs nervously. She slings the loop of her purse over her shoulder. Oblivious. Thank you. "Ok then. Are you ready to go?"

Yes. No. Where?

"Yeah," Chase says, grabbing his wallet and tucking it into his pocket. He takes her hand. Relaxes.

They _fit_.

Here. He can be here. He doesn't have to stretch and compromise the definition to fit _happy_ here. It is a choice; he can opt to stay

Or, he can _not_.

He forgets to turn the lights off when they disappear through the front door, and the artificial glow waits for his return.

_"" "" ""_

She stands up, and the blood and the answers flow. She is 52. She is slightly arthritic. She is an astronaut - a famous one, if her memory isn't trying to compensate. Her name - though she can't remember what exactly it is - might even be a household one. She is on a space shuttle: Easy enough to distinguish from her surroundings. The feeling of walking on the moon kisses the bottoms of her heels.

More steps: Ouch. Her headache is duller now, but the pain isn't pulsing in a lone, isolated area anymore - it is a contagion in her mind. Nausea makes her unsteady on her feet.

Fifteen minutes, and she knows why she is in the…storage place to begin with. The minutes pass slowly and then another crucial detail: Her shuttle is landing in two hours.

She enters the forward fuselage. Her memory is granting no more wishes. We appreciate your patronage. Come back again tomorrow.

"Dwyer?" says a young man. Brown eyes. Doe on a street. Headlights. _Roadkill_, she finally thinks.

"Are you all right?" Persistent. Get off the street.

"I'm fine." She is short with him, but suddenly it's as though she has fire instead of blood and the sweat is steam rolling off her body. _(Smolder.)_

But she concentrates on the gift that her memory has held hostage: A name. But _What _Dwyer? That's her last name, right?

"Did you bring the breakfast?" asked a dark Indian girl - her name is Anne Akbar. Her identity is easy to recall. This confusion is so teasing, so flirty: Certain, irrelevant facts are given so willingly, but the essentials linger so far from her. So shallow. So immature.

"No," Dwyer says irritably. "I decided I wasn't hungry."

"But the rest of _us_ were," replies Akbar hotly. That bitch. "I wanted fruit," she pouts. Dwyer's stomach turns over itself.

"Get it yourself," she tries to say. But she throws up instead.

It floats. This vomit. Brown and thin and liquid and not inside her anymore: _On _her. Face and nose and splayed across her mouth and for everyone to see. Confession: I'm sick. Old. Dangerous in my helplessness. Put me in a nice home please, and slip the nurse ten dollars on your yearly visit so she doesn't forget to change my diaper. I'm not having a stroke; it's just been a while since you've seen me. What I've become.

When she throws up again, she can remember to lean over. Over the sound of her own retching: "Alert NASA. We've got a sick crew member onboard."

_"" "" ""_

Cuddy doesn't know it yet, but she is being watched.

The stalker leans against a wall outside her office: A fortitude. Her blinds are closed, but he rocks at physics; if he turns his head at exactly the right angle, he estimates he can see down her shirt. She frowns: A benefactor on the phone. Money. Dollar bills with mouths and libidos and deep pockets.

Or him. She could be talking about him, cane and sex and genius and hot anger just beneath his skin.

Her frown sinks deeper into the thin wrinkles around her mouth, and her head is cradled in her hand. Her chest turns and he thinks that if he cocks his head just…like…that - there. The prize. A dark shadow between the palest parts of her body.

He watches as she fits the phone back on the receiver. Every part has a match. Everything fits together neatly. She closes her eyes and sighs. He waits for the moment: Relax, Lisa baby, I'm not here yet. You've got a few seconds before I ruin your day. Use them wisely: I'm not leaving.

CRACK! House precedes his entrance by slamming the round bottom of his cane into the doorframe: Thunder. She is not shaken.

"House, you just got a new case," she says, looking at him through her dark lashes; he thinks of clear blue skies hiding behind storm clouds.

"Perfect," House responds, making eye-contact with her. "I can't wait to work with the new team. Wilson already bet that I could make Horowitz cry after the first hour of actually using medicine, but I think Leonard has real sob potential."

She sits up straight. A gift of attention. "They won't be helping with this one - I'm calling in Chase, Cameron, and Foreman."

"Pretty as you are, Dr. Cuddy, I just don't think they would agree to a foursome with you after three satisfying years with me. You _might _stand a chance with the new lackeys; you should tap that while you can. It's only a matter of time before they learn who the _real_--"

She doesn't blink. "This case is too high-profile to be in the hands of the new guys," she interrupts calmly. "NASA called half an hour ago. They've got a sick astronaut. The shuttle will land at the Kennedy Space Center in about an hour and a half, then they're flying Dwyer - the astronaut - here to get treated by you." An errant curl gets tucked behind her ear. Don't you misbehave. "The media's already at LaGuardia waiting for her, and some reporters have been sneaking around here too. I know this is asking a lot, but _please _- try to not detonate this hospital's reputation."

He flips his cane in the air - _whish_ - and catches it, one-handed. "Don't worry - everyone will be too distracted by your boobs to notice the crip chugging Vicodin in the corner. Besides," he says, leering at her. "You'll never get the Original Gangsta Ducklings back."

A smirk. "I already did half the job. Chase and Cameron are on their way."

"Even while unemployed," House sighs. "They can't resist sucking up to me."

"Whatever you want to tell yourself," Cuddy says, straightening up at her desk and House recognizes the symptoms: She is going back into administrative mode. Getting ready for Foreman. Step up; be a doctor. I'm wearing a low-cut shirt today.

"Now get out of here," she is saying, picking up her phone receiver. "I have another bridge of yours to resurrect."

_"" "" ""_

Back to the air.

"Dr. House," they keep saying. "He's a good doctor. You'll be fine. Just relax."

She wants to close her eyes, but when she does that, she sees a jagged meteor, flying closer and closer to Earth.

_(Impact.)_

_"" "" ""_

In the first three seconds, his muscle cells burn off extra ATP. His phosphagen system starts pumping energy for ten seconds: Thank you, medical texts, you've taught me well. Now, the glycogen-lactic acid system takes over. His breathing rate increases - oxygen is the main ingredient of ATP. His clean, white sneakers _(not like his, that first sign he can't forget) _pound on hot pavement and it is aerobic respiration that continues to fuel Foreman until he hears a computerized version of 'When the Saints Go Marching In' begin to play.

He slows down and pants, his hands holding his knees: Another reminder that he is real, a symmetric, scientific masterpiece. His breathing begins to even. His cell phone is in his sweaty palm and the ID of the call is PPTH. He smirks.

He knew House would want to rehire him.

Foreman waits a few more minutes before calling back and sits on a bench with chipped paint. All the better to be calm and collected. A gift from the ghetto to humanity: May we present Eric Foreman, a champion of defying the odds! Far from a chameleon, this man refused to assimilate into a world of drugs and gangs. So why, clever audience, is he unable to resist morphing into his asshole boss?

A sigh. Don't think about it.

On the phone, Cuddy is talking about an astronaut and newbies and Dr. Foreman, I know you quit for a reason but I will pay you double your usual wage if you work on this case. (No,) and I didn't call to argue with you but this is a very high-profile case and will make it much easier to get hired and (I'm sorry I can't help you, Dr. Cuddy, but the I've got a lot of stuff to take care of and-)

And she loses her temper. _Krakatoa_, he thinks, just before she lets him have it: "Dr. Foreman, I appreciate that you don't want to end up like House. But right now, you're putting your pride ahead of the needs of a patient. Someone could die because of your stubbornness. Don't you think that's worse?"

His fingernails dig under the dark green paint chips and he remembers the Beautification project that spawned this bench's existence. Nothing gold can stay.

_"" "" ""_

She is stirring a mug of coffee and Chase is nibbling on a pen cap and Foreman is pacing and Cameron knows that old habits die so slowly. A week ago they were colleagues, but unemployment apparently begets yawning stretches of silence: Where have the three people who used to slip easily into conversation gone? _And when_, Cameron wonders, _will they come back? _

"So." It is Foreman who breaks the silence. "What job offers have _you _guys had to defer to be here?"

Chase sets down his pen abruptly. "None really, as of yet," he says, but he is nervous now: Cameron knows him, knows his habits. But before she has time to contemplate this development:

"What about you, Cameron?"

Chase opens his mouth and then closes it, but not quickly enough - Foreman notices that and Cameron's awkward little smile. "So," he says, smirking. "It's like that between you two?"

Cameron is saved from an obnoxious answer to an obnoxious question when the door suddenly swings open and there House is and _now _they're back to the way it used to be. With House enters a sudden buzz of energy and three doctors - all male. She guesses they must be the new the new _them._ She doesn't want to be here, but she _is_, and she's too much of a people-pleaser to resist easing back into their diagnostic sessions.

House doesn't look at any of them, but makes a beeline straight to the white board, pausing only to slide what must be a patient folder to Chase, who opens it and begins to read to himself.

"Well," House prompts, tapping his cane. "Are you going to share with the class or what?"

Chase practically jumps to attention; Cameron secretly thinks he's happy to see his former boss. "Fifty-nine year old female. Her aunt died of breast cancer but otherwise, no family history of cancer or heart problems." He glances up but does not back away from House's impatient glare. "Why is she being admitted in the first place?"

House cracks his knuckles irritably and a man with freckles and a shock of red hair answers for him. "Lucy Dwyer's an astronaut and apparently passed out shortly before landing. The other astronauts have reported that she came back disoriented, had a fever and a headache, and was vomiting. One guy said she was rather tetchy, but that was contested by someone else on the flight who said she was always kind of nasty. So irritability may or may not be a symptom." He announces this all very quickly.

"We should run a lumbar puncture," Foreman responds immediately. He is sitting up straight in his chair: Proud. Arrogant.

"You think its meningitis?" Cameron asks. She does not know why she is so surprised: An extreme ego breeds an extreme diagnosis.

"I think its _textbook _meningitis."

"None of the other astronauts have reported any symptoms," Chase argues.

"Not all people that are infected with meningitis will actually get the disease. Plus," Foreman continues, failing to mask his excitement. Back on the chain gang. "Aren't astronauts on oxygen tanks all the time or something? It's spread through respiratory secretions."

"Actually, they only wear the tanks when they're not in the shuttle - like if they have to repair equipment," a very young, very bald man says. "Or something," he adds, as though flippancy is compensation for opposition and intelligence. This backwards world.

"Still," Foreman insists. So happy to talk. His voice is his Midas. "There are plenty of explanations as to why the other crew members aren't sick. It may just be they're not showing symptoms yet."

"Fine," House says - he has been uncharacteristically silent throughout the entire session. "You and Cameron will perform an LP when she gets here."

"Are you kidding me? We need to do a blood panel first." Cameron practically yells it: Why is House testing them like this?

He almost nods. Almost approves. But then - the door opens again and Cuddy is there: "House, your patient just got here."

House gives Cameron one last look. "Okay, run a blood panel before the LP. Come on, get to it already!"

She follows Foreman and Chase out of the office, but not quickly enough to miss the gift, the irreplaceable gem, that House never meant for her to hear: "Now that," he says to the new fellows, "is how the differentials are _supposed _to run."


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything._

_Author's Notes: Once again, a big thank-you to _**leiadiana** and **jcshipper**, who have been wonderful in providing the help and encouragement necessary for this fic to be written and posted. You guys are awesome! And this was written for **Finally Tuesday**'s Get-Chase-Hugged fic fest.

""""

Parasites feast comfortably inside distended bellies. Their hosts are tender, fatigued, achy, but they tuck eagerly into their $10.99 chicken-and-potato dinner: So happy to share their food, their bodies. The nests. The sacrifices.

She is observing the Prepared Childbirth Class, and tries to convince herself not to be there. But: a painful tug in her abdomen where that useless organ exists. Vestigial. And how can she leave when her traitorous body urges her to stay?

Cuddy forces herself to avert her eyes and thinks of astronauts bouncing on a full, swollen moon, the realities of Earth exquisitely far away. Like fantasies.

It pulls again. This need.

Suddenly, there is a flash of light, and now circles of baby-bright colors that obscure her vision. Another reporter, she thinks. The talking head of Celeste O'Hara suddenly appears in her mind's eye, her lipstick too pale against her skin. _Dean of Medicine crumbles under pressure of diagnosing famous astronaut._ If only.

Cuddy sighs, and astronauts dissolve in her mind. The defeat.

She goes to be a doctor, and the moon is a flat crescent pressed against the night.

""""

They accumulate around the sterile bed, clustering. Hungry for information. How are you feeling? What hurts you? Where? Can you remember anything, Lucy? No. Too tired. Leave me alone. She wants to growl. They are assembling so quickly, and its throwing her mind off - not one of them makes sense without another. Little Legos. Tiny pieces that fit together, their united status builds something so momentous and towering, it is impossible to know where to look for the cracks. But: Choking Hazard.

The dark doctor rubs something onto her arm as the blonde one observes patiently behind him. The woman is smiling and leaning against the doorframe.

They must exist. The cracks. The parent's worry. Nothing is perfect.

Lucy? You still awake? This might prick a little.

Doe-eyes smiles at her and Anne Akbar holds her hand and blood drips away from her: The choking hazard diminishes as the building grows.

""""

In the lab again.

_Coming back wasn't so bad,_ Foreman thinks, and listens to Chase and Cameron's idle chatter as they wait for the blood panel. The canceled dinner plans. The sick astronaut. Do you want to just stay in tomorrow night? Might as well, this could turn into a long one… He tries to convince himself to be surprised at their relationship - at the fact that they turn out to be the functional ones. The couple. He almost wants to stay friends with them to see what their genetic-lottery kids will look like.

A low, keening beep signals that the results are in, and Chase and Cameron quiet down and huddle around him. Foreman smiles. Triumphant. "She's got an elevated WBC. It's meningitis. We'll do the LP to confirm and--"

But the dissent: Chase looks uneasy. "The high WBC could indicate any number of diseases. We should put her on empiric antibiotics for a few hours before to see if any new symptoms develop. The meningitis diagnosis could be compromised - like that!" He snaps his fingers to stress his point.

Cameron is nodding, and here is the problem with relationships. Loyalty. Anchoring you down.

"But if it _is_ meningitis," Foreman insists before Cameron gets the chance to speak. "And if it's bacterial, we don't _have_ a few hours."

"I agree with Chase," Cameron says. Big surprise. "Dwyer was drowsy and irritable when we took the blood sample and those are symptoms of meningitis too, but - I don't think you should be so rash here. There are a million other things those could indicate." Foreman glares at her, and she gives a little. "We should give her the empiric antibiotics for just a couple hours. Don't look at me like that, Foreman, just two! If her symptoms persist, we'll do the LP. But it's a painful procedure, and we shouldn't do it if we can avoid it."

"Don't think so," a deep voice says - House again. When did he show up? The door swings shut. "The antibiotics could mask a new symptom. We should wait an hour, do nothing, _then_ perform the LP."

"Right," Foreman answers. Mutinous. Flat. The jerk. But who is he talking about again? He's forgotten, and the distinctions between him and House begin to blur. "You know what? Let's just send her back to the moon and see what happens. We'll have just a good a shot of saving her there as we do if we sit on our asses and wait around."

House smirks and grinds his knuckles against the curved top of his cane. Dust to dust. "Well," he says. "You do have the power of an attending now - it's your call."

"Then I'll do it," Foreman says, and he walks blindly into the trap House has set.

""""

"It's funny," Dwyer murmurs coolly, "about the way everything reverts back to the way it once was."

Cameron is helping Dwyer roll onto her side and she pushes her patient's knees up to her chest. A quick glance over her patient's body: Foreman still has that same frown. Nostalgia, she thinks, and she almost wants to hug him, to reassure him that there is a way to change the path you're on. _(Yet you, yourself, cannot break the ways of this old pattern, and you will hurt again, that familiar ache inside of you…)_ But instead, Cameron locates all the familiar landmarks and begins to rub the lidocaine onto Dwyer's back. Across the table, Foreman is assembling the needle and manometer.

"Why do you say that?" she asks amiably, and she and Foreman switch places: It is he, the neurologist, who will perform the lumbar puncture.

"That's the thing about the Big Bang theory." Dwyer is drifting, and Foreman raises an eyebrow at Cameron: Confusion is another sign of meningitis. "It suggests that if the universe has the capacity to explode and if--"

A pause as Foreman inserts the needle into her lower back but partially withdraws it: He struck bone.

Cameron smiles encouragingly at her patient as Foreman looks for the landmarks. "Go on."

"And if the universe has the capacity to _ex_plode," she continues, "then it has the capacity to _im_plode."

Slowly, Foreman begins to pull out the needle again.

"…And if I die tonight - well, look at me." Dwyer is curled up in the fetal position, which is standard for an LP. She tugs bitterly on the IV cord that is snaked into her arm: Chase did prescribe the empiric antibiotics. The three of them now have the power of attendings. The final perk. Cuddy had promised.

Cameron tries to think about this, forcing herself not to let instinct take over. Her mouth closes around the words she's tried so hard to establish distance from. Don't be silly. You'll be all right. She gulps down her reassurances, but it is like swallowing broken glass.

"Actually, you can relax now," Foreman says instead, and he and Cameron help Dwyer lay back on her bed. "Everything went fine."

He doesn't know it yet, but it is a lie.

""""

Minutes after Foreman and Cameron exit the room, Cuddy enters it. She doesn't think Dwyer notices the distinction or the absence of her crew members, and this comforts her: Dwyer could think that Cuddy is anybody, and Cuddy finds herself wanting to slip comfortably into this alias. "So," she says, all smiles, "how are you feeling?"

Dwyer grunts something inconsequential, and Cuddy continues her one-sided conversation, listening only to Dwyer's quick breathing. "You know, the day you walked on the moon was the day I became Dean of Medicine here." It's true: She still remembers sitting alone on her couch, mesmerized, as O'Hara was visibly crying on the news. Cuddy had thought them both such successes, but now - they are here, with only each other as company. Their colleagues are not substitutes for what is missing, and their successes both seem so superficial now.

Dwyer doesn't respond, and suddenly, something doesn't feel right. The case report had said she was drowsy, but this seems excessive. Dwyer's breathing slows down again, and Cuddy pulls out her thin flashlight from her pocket, practically opens Dwyer's eyes for her, and flashes it on. Her pupils barely react at all. Sluggish. Cuddy frowns, and pages House and his team quickly.

It takes all of thirty seconds for Chase to get there, and by the time he does, the Dwyer has completely lost consciousness. "Brain stem herniation," Cuddy says hurriedly to him, and he begins to intubate immediately. Speed is key. The right one came. Chase uses a laryngoscope to see what he's doing, and slides the tube down Dwyer's throat. An expert.

"What's going on?" It is Cameron, rushing into the room.

"Brain stem herniation. I need .6 gm/kg's of Mannitol," Chase responds calmly, still intubating, and Cameron immediately administers it.

"This is because of the LP. We did that fifteen minutes ago." She makes eye-contact with Chase, who is now beginning to hyperventilate Dwyer. "We have to put her in a barbituate coma. She'll become paralyzed or stroke otherwise."

They both look expectantly at Cuddy, and suddenly she is thinking of an angry, blue-eyed patient with a blind stubbornness to use both legs. This is why she became an administrator - _he_ is why she became an administrator. You don't hug patients - you treat them. She knows this now and she knew it then - but she ran away from patient rooms and into offices, and it was so easy to forget over time. But now - this past year - these patients. The mothers. The lonely ones. Helpless.

This usual distortion.

Cuddy watches Chase's long fingers opening and compressing around the ventilation bag. "Do it," she says from some place far away, and Cameron inserts that long, thin needle into Dwyer's arm as House and Foreman come spilling into the room.

"Just what have you done?" House is asking all of them, but he is looking only at her.


	3. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer: I still don't own anything!_

_Author's Note: Sorry for the wait, everyone (all two of you!). I would once again like to thank __**leiadiana **__and __**jcshipper**__ for their invaluable encouragement and help with this story. Appreciation also goes out to the finallyTuesday Livejournal community, without which this story wouldn't have been prompted and this author wouldn't know where to find Chase/Cameron fics! Finally, I would like to thank you, the readers, just because._

_- _

He doesn't want to hide it. This desperation. Anger. Blame. Did you remember the recipe for that old cocktail? Were the words familiar in your mouth? What was it you used? Barbital? Alphenal? Was it what you gave me?

_(He is young and hurting and so helpless and he holds his chart in front of him but he just can't understand. She climbs onto his bed, kisses, is this good-bye? He loves her, but he loves the other one too… Give me the forms you need signed, she says, and what he hears is that she's saving his life but what he knows is that she's ruining it and oh, his leg his leg his leg. Not this one: Save them both. He could be in pain the rest of his life, no don't do it don't do it don't do it…)_

"What," he repeats slowly, "have you done?"

Cuddy turns around to Chase and Cameron, gesturing for them to leave. They resist at first, but she nags: "It was my decision. Go." Foreman follows them, and House is finally, finally glad they are gone, although they probably will hear every word he and Cuddy exchange.

She looks back at him. "She was having a brain stem herniation," Cuddy begins firmly, as if sojourning into a long bedtime story for the kids, and the vengeance is so sweet - but this is not what he wanted for her. "Chase intubated and hyperventilated the patient, and Cameron administered Mannitol. It took us too long to realize what was going on to not put her in the coma - she would be paralyzed or dead otherwise. Cameron wouldn't have done it if I said no, but I told her to.

"And - and you screwed up, House." A deep, tired sigh. "You let someone else make your decisions for you and you're letting random symptoms influence the diagnosis." He looks at her blankly. "The irritability, House. She's fifty-nine years old and she's all alone here. No husband. No kids. Her biggest support system is her colleagues, and where are they now? Not here. Not with her. Professionally, she's achieved what no other woman has but personally, wouldn't you say she's a failure? And she's realizing this all now when it's…when it's too late. And this, somehow, all went ignored by you."

_(Was it you who nearly killed me? Where is the guilty party?)_

He is staring at her - tell me more - but something in her eyes flickers and its, "oh, don't look at me like that. I've done nothing but try to help you this year and you've been a complete asshole in return. But what was I expecting? This isn't about you, House. You know we did what we had." And who is she talking about again?

_(It's a good thing you never became a mother. Because you suck at it.)_

_- _

This is it, then. This is how it ends.

Dr. Ambrose is calling from Melbourne General again, and Chase is literally unable to keep this from Cameron any longer. They are driving back to the hospital after picking up donuts for the team together, the streetlights a rolling blur outside their windows on this terrible night. It is one in the morning in New Jersey, but it's two in the afternoon in Australia.

Cameron picks up Chase's ringing phone and checks the caller ID. "I think you're getting a job offer," she yawns. "From…wow." A connection in her tired mind.

Chase pulls into a parking space and turns to her. "Yeah. He's called a couple times before. Dr. Ambrose. He's the Dean of Medicine at my dad's old hospital - must have heard I'm out of work."

"Oh." Her voice is quiet as she pulls her up into a neater ponytail for the hospital. This job is here, and she could stay so easily. There is nothing pulling her to that continent… "Do you want to take it?" Her question is so honest, so wholly sincere, that it throws Chase off for a second.

"I - I'm not sure. Maybe," he says, and waits for her to rush out of the car. But she stays.

The Dunkin' Donuts box is wide on her lap. "Well," she begins. Diplomatic. Calm and controlled. "Could you see yourself living there again?"

He turns to her. His desire to tell her the truth, to include her, is so all-encompassing that it seems to leave room for nothing else. "I always figured I'd go back home eventually." The confession. Here it is, Cameron. Allison. How's it going to be from now on?

"Oh." Her hand drifts from the door handle and onto the flat lid. She can be in the hospital, Chase realizes, but for now - she is with him. The million-dollar choice. The difference is in the distance, and the hospital is bright and welcoming here and there.

-

It had all fit. The irritability. The elevated WBC. The fever. The vomiting. The headache. The herniation could be explained. And yet…

The negative LP. It all dwindles down to this one sordid fact. It's not meningitis.

Foreman is sitting across from Chase and Cameron in that proverbial conference room, the lair of the jerk, and suddenly he wants to get away now. Misdiagnosis is one thing, but malice is another. Don't you pick up on the behaviors around you? Isn't that some psychology theory? Can't this be easily explained?

_(When it is the environment that is making you sick, the simplest cure is removal from the environment.)_

"Maybe," he says, rubbing his fingers across the surface of the table, "we have some extra symptoms. Irritability and confusion can both be facets of her personality…"

"I don't think so." Cameron frowns at him, placing a half-eaten donut on a crumpled napkin. "Her team spent seven days and nights with her - they reported that there was a change."

"And I doubt the space program would have let Dwyer captain a shuttle if she was disoriented most of the time," Chase says, finishing the job.

"Maybe they felt guilty about not noticing it before," Foreman presses. "They could have been dismissive…"

_(And what if it's not the environment? What if it's genetic? How can you cure something that's ingrained into your DNA?)_

Cameron rolls her eyes, as though astronauts are on a higher moral plane than everyone else.

"Maybe Foreman was right," Chase says, although it's clear to Foreman that that is not the case. "It's not meningitis, but since personality changes were recorded, it's probably neurological."

Foreman nods. "I'll get a CT," he says, bowing down to someone else's idea. The latest surrender, and he can't bring himself to care.

-

The Delivery Room Lounge is still awesome. It's got a mini-fridge, wide, overstuffed couches, and now it also features Wilson - it is where he was instructed to be at 7:45 that morning, as per House's page. The good friend. He tends to follow directions.

Distraction is the best cure.

He knows the ugliest truth.

Wilson is still waiting at 8:15 when House suddenly rushes into the room, bagel in hand, and flips on the news. "Check it out," he says, and Wilson is a little disturbed at his lack of surprise to see Cuddy standing in front of the very hospital they are in, on the news.

_"As a doctor who respects doctor-patient confidentiality,"_ News-Cuddy is saying, _"I cannot tell you whether or not Lucy Dwyer has meningitis. But Ms. O'Hara--"_

_"--Celeste, please!"_

House grins as he watches Cuddy struggle not to roll her eyes. _"But Celeste,"_ she continues, _"I can tell you that she is being treated by some of the best, most capable doctors in my hospital. I don't know who"leaked" some confidential medical information, but I promise that no matter what the reports suggest, Ms. Dwyer is in excellent care."_

"That Dwyer has some haircut," Wilson remarks under his breath, commenting on the thumbnail picture the news has put up in which Dwyer is sporting an unfortunate crew-cut.

"It's longer than your last girlfriend's," House replies, thinking of Grace. Bald, dead Grace.

Wilson immediately tenses in his seat. "Yeah, your patient will join her soon if you don't do your job," he responds, but his jibe is weak. "You know, Cuddy managed to get the entire team back - you could at least be in the same room as them for over five minutes at a time."

"But not quite as long as yours," House persists. Again with the hair. He turns to look at Wilson. "Well, maybe it is."

"Show me," Wilson demands, thinking of thirsty horses that are too stubborn to drink. But if the water looks interesting enough…

Cameron, Foreman, and Chase are prepping Dwyer for the CT when House and Wilson arrive. "See?" House says, running his fingers through Dwyer's gray hair. "She's only some stubble and surgery away from you in twenty years."

But his fingers hit a bump: The flaw in the plan. House frowns, the mechanics of his mind beginning to turn. He brushes some of Dwyer's hair away, and notices a red, swollen injury. "You idiots," he says, scowling at his former team. The old routine. "She's had a concussion. Check for signs of trauma on the CT."

He stalks angrily out, but Wilson is satisfied: One successful battle out of a million.

-

Cameron is the last to arrive in the conference room, where Foreman and Chase are already examining the CT, that depression in black and white. "House was right," Chase says to her as she stands beside him. "Dwyer has sustained a concussion. Recently too, it looks like."

"…Which accounts for the disorientation, drowsiness, and irritation," Foreman sighs.

"Maybe," Cameron murmurs, studying the CT. "Did Dwyer just slip and fall? Or did she pass out and the concussion is just the result of that?"

"It's the latter if it's neurological," Foreman says. "But there's a CT right here and there doesn't seem to be much wrong," he finishes just as Chase announces, "I think I've found a problem."

Chase points his fingers to some abnormal coloring in the sinuses Cameron hadn't noticed before. "Fluid."

"We should get an MRI," Cameron responds immediately. "With gadolinium enhancement," she adds. "It should be sensitive."

"I'll do it," Foreman volunteers, and rushes out. Usefulness is such a precious gift, Cameron thinks, before stepping closer to Chase.

"Have you given any more thought to Australia?" She is tentative, unsure. What is the answer she wants to hear?

"No," Chase responds quietly, as though he is afraid to disturb the peace. He wraps his arm around her waist, hugging her a little. "Not really." So afraid to commit to a firm answer.

"What's the weather like there?" And suddenly, with a rush of emotion, she wants to know: The questions of the everyday, of curiosities that linger in the wide gaps between Kodak moments, have implanted themselves in her mind in the most unexpected way.

Chase smiles at her for the shortest second, but it lights his whole face up. "Are you really interested?"

Cameron leans into Chase, committing to the hug, and thinks the question over. House and Cuddy's spat suddenly replays in her mind with new meaning: Cameron has let her heart decide her career for her - first her husband prompting her to go to medical school, then quitting - and soon coming back - for House. And that decision has always, _always_ left her miserable and alone and mourning for what was and wasn't. Her personality was a cold reflection of this but this one... this one saw it and pursued her anyway.

And _oh_, she loves him wholly, intuition and charm and nerve and sheer presence: He is here.

He is with her.

He is here.

He _is, _he exists,but there's more. There's emotion.

_(My heart is with you.)_

"Yes," she says, and the word sets over their lives like a glittering sun, leaving them glowing in its wake.

-

He finds Foreman in Radiology, staring at the patient's MRI results on a computer screen. He wanted some privacy, House reasons. A private fall from grace. House has a sudden, inexplicable but undeniably necessary desire to tell Foreman that silence does not cushion the drop, to warn him that loneliness is hungry and casts a far-reaching shadow. But one can never quite be unaccompanied in a hospital - House can see Dwyer's feet poking out of the long MRI tube.

"It's a subdural empyema," Foreman says flatly to House, refusing to take his eyes off the screen. "That's what's wrong with her."

And it clicks: The fever and the headache. The excess fluid. The herniation. The lumbar puncture had relocated the pressure from the empyema to the brain stem when the CSF was drained. The concussion_had_ been an accident - the injury had triggered an eroding sinus wall to completely break down. There was nothing more to Dwyer's fall than age.

And the irritability was a symptom after all.

"The antibiotics Chase prescribed saved her life," Foreman continues quietly, still not looking at House. "They halted the empyema's progress. If I had things my way - if I had just gone ahead with the LP - she'd be dead by now."

But she's not. They will perform surgical drainage and dose her up with more antibiotics. She'll be fine. She'll fall into the 'any other patient' category, and their lives will go on. But where's that sense of satisfaction, that familiar pleasure? Where is the weak, fleeting fulfillment he relies so heavily on?

Then, on the heels of that, the heady realization: This was not the mystery House needed to solve after all.

-

Her office is the room at the end of the world, so incredibly far away. It's been hours since she's talked to House and _oh_, he's going to know everything. That secret she's tried so desperately to hide from the world, hoping that its absence would cancel out its existence. Cuddy begins power-walking there, because if she slows down, she doesn't think she'll be able to resist the urge to fall against the wall and fold into herself, and this, she thinks, is an apt metaphor for her life.

She feels something grasp her shoulder, and knows it is his hand. "What?" she asks coldly, because that is the easiest emotion to feel.

House looks at her almost…sadly. "How long have you known?" he asks, and his voice is so much quieter now than it was before.

And he's figured it out. Her personal enigma. What he's interested in. Everyone will know now, and that makes her foul fact terribly real and true. Denial is so easy when you're alone. "Remember that pregnant photographer? Emma Sloan? I found out the day of her surgery." Her voice is terribly quiet, and House thinks of five tiny fingers wrapping around one of his. "I can't have kids, House. I can't have kids. I'm actually unable to."

"I," House begins, but doesn't continue, at an apparent and blessed loss for words. "I'm so sorry," is what he finishes with, but it's to be interpreted as 'I can't cure this.'

_(This is not the last time he will let you down, just the most recent...)_

"Actually," she says wryly, "today it's a good thing. Usually I have to be drunk to say it out loud." Her tone is dark and unnatural, and Cuddy is suddenly struck by the fear that she will grow into it.

There is a brief quietness, a reprieve from this terrible conversation. House is leaning on his cane, frowning. "You wouldn't suck. As a mother. I lied."

"I know," Cuddy admits, and isn't this the most heart-breaking part about it? Her baby would be so lucky.

If only it could exist.

"You'd be good at it. Great, even." And though his words are tragic by tense, they remind her of sun rays, crashing through a hardened skin of ice.

-

The East Jersey State Prison reminds him inexplicably of Congress, with its round, dome roof and the windows which, from a distance, make Foreman think of elegant pillars. If he wanted to, he could almost pretend this is not a jail, and that this represents accomplishment instead of failure. That this place does not mean that something went wrong. That everyone is actually innocent.

But he can't.

The plexiglass window that segregates the jailers from their families is scratched and smudged with fingerprints. It stretches the length of the Visiting Center, and is punctuated here and there by mothers and friends and lovers who press their hands against the barrier as though this will make a difference. But what changes? Not the sentence. Not the crime. Not the betrayal.

_(The people?)_

Foreman sees his brother approach the window. "S'been a while," Foreman says, and the glass seems to melt between them. What was wrong can be made right, he suddenly understands. There is parole. Not all sentences are for life.

Being in jail didn't ruin his life, it just shaped it. He will be fine - one day. As will Marcus. Foreman still has the ability to deny his own history, and no one

_(else)_

would give it a second thought. But instead, he chooses to embrace.


End file.
